Minsc and spoilers

judiodeplomo · August 2017

Dear developers,

Can you please stop using Minsc in every single quest ever? He's not that amusing.
And while you are at it, can you please stop giving spoilers for Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 through Minsc's voice lines in every quest that he features in? I know that these are old games and many people have played them already. But they are also considered classics, and it's very likely that people still want to play them spoiler-free today.

For an example of this, please see the Maze Engine campaign quest "Chapter 7: Crashing the Cultists". It is full of spoilers with no hesitation, no warning and no way to turn them off. It also features Minsc for absolutely no reason.

Thanks.

gabrieldourden · August 2017

More Minsc and more Boo are always good.

armadeonx · August 2017

I'd hardly call it a spoiler when a game is 20 years old. Not to mention, most of his comments are hints that a person wouldn't understand until after they've played them.

Also, he's not in nearly as many quests as is suggested here - it's mainly just Maze Engine and the early stages of Elemental Evil.

Him boring you is a different matter, separate from the points above - however, the devs won't rewrite an old campaign based on such subjective opinions.

judiodeplomo · August 2017

armadeonx said:
I'd hardly call it a spoiler when a game is 20 years old. Not to mention, most of his comments are hints that a person wouldn't understand until after they've played them.

Spoilers are spoilers regardless of age. And I do address the age in my original post.

As for Minsc himself, I did not say that he is boring. He is just of very poor quality. A one-trick pony. A HAMSTER joke repeated ad nauseam. Which is a lot less than he was in the Baldur's Gate games. And it's honestly a shame to see a good character recycled to death like that.

Edit: Apparently this forum's profanity filter turns a joke about human flatulence into a joke about a hamster. That only serves to demonstrate my point about Minsc.

armadeonx · August 2017

I played BG/ToSC when they first came out (showing my age here) and I loved them. Sure he's pretty two dimensional here but it doesn't really bother me. If we could create npc parties to accompany us & include him as one (as in BG) then I'd hope for a fuller character. I just regard his appearance here as a cameo.

beckylunatic · August 2017

armadeonx said:
Not to mention, most of his comments are hints that a person wouldn't understand until after they've played them.

I agree. The only way Minsc's comments really qualify as spoilers are if you already have enough familiarity with the BG series to interpret them. They're pretty vague.

And I'm saying that as a person who has played the BG series easily 20+ times and wrote about 3/4 of it into fan fiction.

judiodeplomo · August 2017

beckylunatic said:

armadeonx said:
Not to mention, most of his comments are hints that a person wouldn't understand until after they've played them.
I agree. The only way Minsc's comments really qualify as spoilers are if you already have enough familiarity with the BG series to interpret them. They're pretty vague.

I have to disagree. In the quest mentioned above, "Chapter 7: Crashing the Cultists", Minsc and Drizzt have a conversation where it is revealed that Minsc had a Bhaalspawn friend and that Dynaheir died after the events of BG1. That seems pretty spoilerific to me.

qexotic · August 2017

judiodeplomo said:

beckylunatic said:

armadeonx said:
Not to mention, most of his comments are hints that a person wouldn't understand until after they've played them.
I agree. The only way Minsc's comments really qualify as spoilers are if you already have enough familiarity with the BG series to interpret them. They're pretty vague.
I have to disagree. In the quest mentioned above, "Chapter 7: Crashing the Cultists", Minsc and Drizzt have a conversation where it is revealed that Minsc had a Bhaalspawn friend and that Dynaheir died after the events of BG1. That seems pretty spoilerific to me.

Given your expressed dislike of spoilers, you could have phrased that a little better. Possibly to: Minsc and Drizzt have a conversation where two significant pieces of information are stated. As it stands, you are just as guilty of spoiling the story line as Cryptic have been by your own standards. Just an observation >:)

ravenskya · August 2017

judiodeplomo said:

I have to disagree. In the quest mentioned above, "Chapter 7: Crashing the Cultists", Minsc and Drizzt have a conversation where it is revealed that Minsc had a Bhaalspawn friend and that Dynaheir died after the events of BG1. That seems pretty spoilerific to me.

If someone hadn't played BG1, they wouldn't even know who Dynaheir is, much less who the Bhaalspawn is that Minsc is referring to. If you follow the lore then yes, Minsc and Drizzt knew each other back then (they were in the game together).

Minsc is not in every quest - he's in EE, and the Maze Engine. I can't remember the last time I've seen him... so, two whole quest lines and the occasional appearance in some of the events like Portabellos.

Are you also upset that the convo's with Drizzt and Brunor might give away events that happened in books? How about Wulfgar and Cattabrie - did their appearance bother you as well?

Those are all cameos - cameos are a nod to previous works for those that recognize them. There weren't "Spoilers" in that if you knew where the characters came from you were happy to see them. If you didn't then there wasn't anything to spoil.

judiodeplomo · August 2017

qexotic said:
Given your exspressed dislike of spoilers, you could have phrased that a little better. Possibly to: Minsc and Drizzt have a conversation where two significant pieces of information are stated. As it stands, you are just as guilty of spoiling the story line as Cryptic have been by your own standards. Just an observation >:)

This thread has the word spoilers in the title.

zebular · August 2017

Well, any game that takes place after a previous game of the same setting, one should expect spoilers. One can play Balder's Gate 2 for example, without playing Baldur's Gate 1, the same goes for Neverwinter Nights. This is a Forgotten Realms game and is cannon lore and is set in the current time period of the Realms, so one should expect spoilers towards anything cannon prior in the timeline.

Basically, what you're saying is that all newer games of the same cannon lore should plaster up spoiler warnings that they contain content that post-dates prior games. We could even go a step further and state how the game has spoilers for many prior Forgotten Realms novels also, as well as even prior and current source material.

"The Spellplague!? What, but I didn't read the novels! The game just spoiled it for me!" - an example, I did read the novels and source material. Just saying.

beckylunatic · August 2017

Zeb brings up the same point I intended to come back and make. Minsc's content may contain more spoilers for BG than I've particularly paid attention to, but this shouldn't be taken as problematic.

If I read LotR and read The Hobbit later (which I absolutely did), is this on Tolkien for putting Hobbit spoilers in LotR, or on me for choosing to read in that order? Can I enjoy both regardless? Heck, yeah.

Even if you're not dealing with a sole creator but shared intellectual property where many creators use the same setting, consumers shouldn't go into any piece of content with expectations that it will never, ever contain information that was in some way surprising in an earlier piece of content. This is unreasonable.

nitocris83 · September 2017

I won't get into the spoilers discussion but as someone who is a big fan of Boo/Minsc, I always enjoy seeing them in game. And Wizards of the Coast is actually quite protective of them and we go through a ton of discussions on how they can be used in the game. While not everyone has to be a fan of all characters, a lot of attention and work goes into getting them in the game which means there are typically strong reasons as to why our storytellers feel it's important to have certain characters.

tripsofthrymr · September 2017

"Luke, I am [spoiler alert]"

wintersmoke · September 2017

zebular said:
Well, any game that takes place after a previous game of the same setting, one should expect spoilers. One can play Balder's Gate 2 for example, without playing Baldur's Gate 1, the same goes for Neverwinter Nights. This is a Forgotten Realms game and is cannon lore and is set in the current time period of the Realms, so one should expect spoilers towards anything cannon prior in the timeline.

Basically, what you're saying is that all newer games of the same cannon lore should plaster up spoiler warnings that they contain content that post-dates prior games. We could even go a step further and state how the game has spoilers for many prior Forgotten Realms novels also, as well as even prior and current source material.

"The Spellplague!? What, but I didn't read the novels! The game just spoiled it for me!" - an example, I did read the novels and source material. Just saying.

Wait... there was a Spellplague?!??!?

kreatyve · September 2017

tripsofthrymr said:
"Luke, I am [spoiler alert]"

"Snape kills [Spoiler Alert].

Minsc and spoilers

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